On-campus officers not included in budget

Idea stalls without funds, concrete policy on weapons

When the Santa Fe Board of Education approved a $265 million operating budget earlier this month, it voted to use one-time funds generated by the sale of school property to support a number of new programs, initiatives and staff positions.

School resource officers — i.e., security personnel — were not among them.

As a result, district leaders said this week, students, staff and community members will not see officers on district campuses this fall.

“My sense is that it will not happen for the fall,” said board President Steven Carrillo.

Vice President Maureen Cashmon agreed: “I don’t think we have the money to fund those positions, so I don’t think it’s gonna happen,” she said.

Board members said the price tag — an estimated $200,000 for three armed officers — is just one of several reasons the

proposal seemed became too difficult to execute.

A variety of school shootings, most recently at high schools in Texas and Indiana, raised fears and concerns. Hopes for improved security were raised in the spring when the Santa Fe district began searching for ways to provide additional safety for its 12,000plus students.

The district held several public meetings to solicit ideas about school safety and the possibility of hiring school resource officers. Some people attending those meetings said they opposed the idea; others approved.

The board entertained hopes the city would ante up half of the needed $200,000, but after his election in March, Mayor Alan Webber told Superintendent Veronica García the city does not have the funds or the manpower to help at this time. And in budget discussions, money to fund the officers became harder to find as the district wrestled with a $1.55 million deficit.

The board did vote to pull some $2.3 million in one-time funds from the sale of Alvord and Kaune elementary school properties to hire extra counselors, support professional development plans and start academic initiatives to help students with reading and math, but the school resource officers were not addressed.

“Most of that money is being used for innovation and initiatives to help kids on so many levels,” Carrillo said. “If we had found grant money separate from that [fund], the board may have softened more to the idea of considering SROs, but I can’t speak for everyone.”

The money problem aside, Carrillo said he was not sure the five-member board would have approved the officers. In the most recent discussion on the issue, Cashmon and board member Kate Noble said they would not support hiring just three officers for a district of 30 campuses — an action they said would leave many students unprotected. Board member Rudy Garcia sided with Carrillo in expressing support for the officers, two of whom would have been stationed at Santa Fe and Capital high schools.

Board member Lorraine Price has been ill and unable to attend recent meetings, but she said earlier this year that she attended schools in New York City with school resource officers and she saw their potential to serve as role models and deter criminal behavior.

Complicating the issues is the need for the board to first approve a policy outlining who can carry guns on school property to meet guidelines set by the New Mexico Public School Insurance Authority, which represents most of the sate’s school districts in purchasing risk insurance. Federal and New Mexico state law prohibits the carrying of firearms on school campuses, with some exceptions.

Noble said that when she learned that news, she realized that “we would have to do a lot more homework to really understand the benefits and how we would do something like hire school resource officers. And I don’t feel that adding a gun to a school setting is a great idea.”

Whether the presence of school resource officers — usually current or retired law enforcement personnel who have been trained to use guns — would deter or stop a school shooter is uncertain. A 2013 report by the Congressional Research Service said the research compiled on the issue at that time was limited and “draws conflicting conclusions about whether [school resource officer] programs are effective at reducing school violence.”

In the Santa Fe, Texas, high school shooting May 18, authorities said the actions of a school resource officer — who was wounded while trying to stop the shooter — might have limited the number of people the gunman shot. Still, 10 people died.

School resource officers were stationed at both Columbine High School in Colorado and Parkland High School in Florida but did not stop mass killers.

However, a school resource officer shot and killed a suspect who had used a handgun to shoot two students in a high school in Maryland in March. And just last month, a school resource officer in Dixon, Ill., confronted and wounded a gunman who opened fire in the school just a minute before. The gunman was prevented from wounding or killing anyone.